One of the problems with living in this century is that every passing year is mentally ticked off against that major calendar milestone – the year 2000, or Y2K (its naffer moniker at the time) – at least by those of us who were out of school when it happened.

And you know what? Yes, you do. It seems like only yesterday there was all that fuss about it and such a panic about how computer systems would go into meltdown at the stroke of midnight, starting in Sydney, Australia – or was it Hawaii? – and bringing life as we knew it to an abrupt halt while the lights went out all over the world.

It was an odd sort of panic, which involved a whole spate of blockbuster disaster movies as a kind of catharsis for all that dread of millennial doom.  Major corporations shelled out to ensure that their software did not go AWOL and give their hardware a life of its own, sort of like Hal in 2001: A Space Odyssey (the second cinematic film I saw, aged around five, the first being The Sound of Music, and it was the latter which terrified me beyond measure and put me off Julie Andrews for life; even now I shudder at pictures of her). And even as those corporations shelled out, and Malta set up its own Y2K contingency committee, we bought dresses and planned parties.

And that’s how it is, really. Just as earlier generations remember where they were when they heard that Kennedy had been shot, we remember where we were and what we wore at the stroke of midnight that shifted us into the year 2000 – which was not, I was at great pains to point out to anyone who would listen, like a true pedant, the first year of the 21st century but the last year of the 20th.

So you can bet that a couple of days ago, the thought passed fleetingly through the minds of many who are upwards of 30 that, oh dear, that was 13 years ago already, and does that mean that the 13 years to come are going to whizz by even faster? Well, with a Labour government they can’t possibly whizz by fast enough.

 

Maltese rooms are becoming masculine

 

Over the last few days, in the course of my other life as a magazine publisher, I’ve been sorting through loads of photographs of some of the latest in Maltese interior design. Apart from the many striking similarities in these many rooms, which I suspect reflect a conventionality of preference among clients rather than their interior decorators, something else struck me with a strange flash of insight. The reason there was something not quite right with so many of those rooms, the thing that made them visually non-arresting and even quite disconcerting to look at, was that they had been designed, either consciously or unconsciously, to appeal to men. These rooms were masculine.

This is not as odd as it sounds. For practically the entire 20th century, the decoration of the home was the woman’s territory entirely. Yes, because she generally did not work or have money of her own, she would have to consult her husband about major purchases like a new sofa or carpet, but that was only about the financial bit, or rather, she would ask him whether there was the money to spend. When it was decreed that a new sofa was within budget, Mr Man never second-guessed Mrs Woman on the actual choice, style, shape, texture or colour of that sofa. He left it up to her, on the assumption that these matters were the special preserve of women and she knew best.

Over the last few years, all of that has changed. Men, no differently to women, have been bombarded by images and marketing campaigns telling them about new styles, new furniture, new carpets, new gadgets and new flooring – which means, basically, telling them to get involved in the choice of what goes into their home, as equal partners with the women who, in a previous generation, would have made all those choices themselves.

The net result, many Maltese men being what they are in over-ruling their wives’ and girlfriends’ preferences (no offence, chaps - you’re lovely, really, in all other ways) is a massive influx of male-oriented furniture and furnishings into every showroom and interior decoration shop. Those which used to hold stock designed to appeal overwhelmingly to women and to less tediously predictable men, and by this I don’t mean pink tulle and chintz by any means, but objects which are visually enticing and fashioned from a mix of textures and colours, have either gone to the wall or have had to rethink their buying policy.

The other result is that smart and fashionable living-rooms are now furnished like what he thinks he might have done if he had been a 30-something bachelor banker in Manhattan, with a terrific loft space - and a much bigger budget, of course. And in yet another surprising role reversal, it is no longer the woman who gets her man to like something by cunningly persuading him that it was his idea in the first place, and isn’t it a great idea, but the men who are now subtly persuading their women that yes, acres of brown and beige (a shade that has struck horror into my heart since the year dot) in boxy shapes, with plenty of steel, chrome, glass and what about some nice black leather thrown in, are the stuff of her dreams.

Believe me, boys, they really are not, even if she does think she has chosen them herself and that they are what she wants.

I’ve noticed something else, too, and please don’t all shout me down at once on this one. When women speak to me about their decision to leave their husband, what I pick up on is not so much their desire for a new and much better suited companion, but their desire to have a home of their own, chosen by themselves alone, which they can furnish and decorate exactly as they please.

Happy New Year.